Main characters of Fullmetal Alchemist - Encyclopedia

This page lists the main characters from the anime series and manga Fullmetal Alchemist, covering the characters who are widely considered to be "primary" to the plot of the story; while the Elric Brothers are the heroes of the story, there are also those who are greatly affected by their adventures and vice versa. All characters are mostly listed by their debut in the storyline (anime, manga, video games). Other characters from the series can be found on the their respective group pages. Due to irregularities in translations some names may have multiple spellings.

Known as the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward is the youngest State Alchemist ever selected by the Amestris State Military. His "second name" was given to him by King Bradley upon passing the State Alchemist certification, and it refers to his automail, his artificial arm and leg.

Ed and his brother Alphonse attempted to revive their mother using alchemy, during which Edward lost his left leg, and Alphonse lost his body. Edward subsequently sacrifices his right arm to gain the knowledge to attach Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor. While Edward is the older brother, he is short for his age, and very self conscious about his height, frequently throwing fits when his size is compared to those around him or to those older than him.

Edward is a very powerful alchemist, even more so than he realizes. Unlike most alchemists, he can perform alchemy without the use of a transmutation circle, by clapping his hands together forming a circle with between his hands. He gained that ability, along with the knowledge of how to perform a soul attachment, when he traded his leg at the Gate of Knowledge. While Edward knew that alchemy without circles was possible from observing his teacher Izumi Curtis, he didn't realize he had this ability until he unknowingly turns ice cold water into hot water while attending Gracia Hughes as she was giving birth. (Edward's unawareness of his ability to perform alchemy without circles creates an inconsistency to some people in that the gate is supposed to give knowledge of alchemy rather than unexplained special abilities.)

At the end of the series, Edward is fatally wounded by Envy, but is revived by Alphonse through the power of the Philosopher's Stone. The revival uses up the Philosopher's Stone (which was at this point the material of the armor) and sends Alphonse's soul to the gate. Edward decides to bring back Alphonse by pulling Alphonse's body out of the gate and reattaching his soul to it. Alphonse was brought back to Amestris in his original body, but Edward's soul was taken to the 'other side' of the gate, which is supposed to be our world. His original body may or may not still be in the gate. But his body in the other world is the body of that world's Edward which he entered on his previous trip through the gate. Edward's Amestris body was made whole by Alphonse, but the body from the other world is missing at least the arm probably lost in bombing of London. Edward lived in post WWI Germany with his father at first. Soon after, he became involved in rocketry research in Romania. His intention being to use the technology of the Other World to get home.

After he became caught up in the plots of the Thule Society surrounding the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, he was able to make his way back to Amestris to help defeat the society's invasion. At the end of the invasion, Edward and Alphonse return to the Other World to make sure both ends of the physical gateway between worlds was closed. After, Edward and Alphonse decide to go on a quest to recover a nuclear bomb created in Amestris which had been sent over into the Other World.

Ed goes home to Rizembol to find Hohenheim, his father, standing at his mother's grave. After a brief argument, Hohenheim and Ed walk to Pinako's with Ed being hostile and belligerent towards his father. As Ed pretends to be asleep, he overhears his father questioning Pinako on whether the body Ed and Al created by transmutation was Trisha revived. This question spurs Ed's curiosity, and after Hohenheim leaves the next day, Ed asks Pinako to go with him to the graveyard to dig up the body he and Al created so many years ago. He starts throwing up and has to take several breaks while digging, but eventually pulls up a lock of hair; black hair instead of brown. Pinako also points out that the bones aren't the same length as Trisha's were. So Ed learns that they didn't even bring back their mother, but brought back something entirely different.

Ed goes to central to find Al is missing his lower "jaw" and his right arm of his suit of armor. After Ed repairs Al, he finds out Al had a run in with Barry the Chopper and the homonculi, but also finds out that Al learned that the soul, when not placed in its original body, can reject the substitute body, just as the human body can reject organ transplants. This rejection may occur within seconds of the soul being placed on a new body, or may not occur for hundreds of years, but rejection is inevitable.

Then, he proceeds to, in a very teenagerish fashion, attempt to ask Winry about the incident involving both brothers asking Winry to marry them when they were around five. She confirms and he asks her why she rejected the both of them. "Because I don't like guys shorter than me" is what she says, causing Ed to go into a fiercer rant of calling her a "demon" and "Don't judge a man's worth by his height."

Then, he tells them, after Winry asks why he's even asking about the incident when they were five, that he is confirming the memories Ed has that Al doesn't have. Al and Winry allude to a moment when Ed was unconscious and fighting a fever after surgery when Winry walked in on Al, who was "resting," and they talk. Only, when Al and Winry allude to the conversation, it sounds almost like they did something other than talk, causing Ed to look incredibly depressed and plead for them to stop talking.

When they get back to the conversation at hand, Ed theorizes that Al's body is with Truth inside the gate and that it's still alive and possibly connected through Ed and Al's blood to Ed. (That he is sleeping, eating, etc. for the both of them.) Al's brain is still alive inside a body that's still alive and it is collecting the memories since Ed transferred Al's soul to the suit of armor. At this point, Al also remembers when he opened the Gate of Truth, he found himself in there, rather than his mother, as he expected. He also realized that his soul was placed on the body that he and Ed had transmuted, and even saw Ed from the body's eyes. However, rejection took place almost immediately after his soul was placed onto the body.

Ed and Al eventually figure the only way they're going to catch a Homunculus (and the philosopher's stone within them) is to let Scar attack them, and tries to attract Scar's attention. Ed does a series of do-gooding around town (while showing off as much and as loudly as possible to get Scar to notice him) and eventually succeeds. A fight between Scar, Ed and Al ensues, with Mustang and Hawkeye diverting attention from them by redirecting the military vehicles to different places away from where the real fight is happening. Winry goes looking for them and ends up overhearing Ed accusing Scar of killing Winry's parents. She picks up the gun an officer dropped and points it at Scar, only to have Ed jump in front of her and tell her to drop the gun while Scar descends on him from the front. When Scar sees this, he hesitates, remembering his own brother protecting him from Kimblee's attack during the Eastern War. Seeing his hesitation, Al attacks Scar, driving him away from the two. Ed then gently pries Winry's hands from the gun while telling her that her hands "are not hands that kill people. They're hands that let people live."

After that, when Ling ties up Gluttony and Winry is going to Rush valley once more, Ed yells a promise to her that when she sees them next he will "make her cry tears of joy." Gluttony escapes his bonds and tries to suck up Roy and everyone else into his "gate" for a stomach. He ends up sucking up Envy, Ling and Ed, instead, and Al's left hand. Ling and Ed find Envy eventually and Envy actually tries to be nice to Ed, however, it all backfires and Envy turns into his natural form.

The tortured souls in Envy's natural form cause Ed to have a semi-nervous breakdown (he cannot bear to hurt them and flashes back to Nina for an instant). Envy then swallows him. However, after seeing the red stone that is Envy's center, he kicks out one of Envy's teeth and tells Envy and Ling that he knows a way that they can escape from Gluttony's stomach.

In the most recent chapter, Ed realized that while human revival is impossible, since equivalent exchange requires the existence of the soul in question, it is possible to open the Gate of Truth by transmuting existing humans using themselves as the starting materials. This does not violate the rule of equivalent exchange, but still is a form of human transmutation, and so is a way of opening the Gate of Truth. Using the souls inside Envy as the "Toll," Ed successfully transmuted himself, Envy, and Ling, and opened the Gate once more. This time, he sees a second Gate, as well as an emaciated Alphonse sitting in front of the second gate. Ed yells for Al's body to come with him. However, Al's body told Ed that he could not go with Ed back to the real world because Ed had a different soul (as in Al's soul must be there for the body to return from the gate). Ed is then swallowed by the hands reaching out from the Gate of Truth, and he, Envy, and Ling fall out of Gluttony's stomach, and in front of the Homunculi's "Father," who bears a startling resemblance to their own.

Alphonse is the younger brother, but is often thought to be older than Ed because he is trapped in a suit of armor twice as large as he is. Also because of the armor, most people who meet Alphonse automatically assume that he is the Fullmetal Alchemist. When Ed and Al tried to revive their mother, Al's body was taken to the gate and Ed had to save him by giving up his arm as the equivalent exchange to bind his brother's soul to a nearby suit of armor. Because of this, Al is unable to feel, smell, or taste anything anymore (he actually doesn't even eat or sleep), but he can apparently see, hear, and speak. Al, like his brother, is an alchemist. Before burning down their home, Ed painted the symbol of a winged snake on a cross on Al's armor. The symbol, which resembles the Caduceus, was inherited from their teacher Izumi Curtis and from Izumi's teacher Dante.

Al's calm personality usually acts as a foil for Ed's. But during his fight with Barry, Al was troubled by the fact that he could possibly be a fabrication of Ed's and may not have truly ever existed, as he was unable to remember some things from when he was human, and he thought Edward was keeping something from him. As a result, Al left to find the truth for himself. But by helping Scar deal with mercenaries and Barry, Al comes to realize that he did in fact exist, and rejoined his brother in their search for the Philosopher's Stone.

After Zolf J. Kimblee uses alchemy to transform Al's armor into explosive material, Scar transferred all of his incomplete Philosopher's Stone into Al to save his life. As a result, Al became, in effect, the Philosopher's Stone. Shortly after, he gained the ability to perform alchemy without circle but becomes the primary href = "http://www.experiencefestival.com/1923">1923, Adam, Arakawa, Beer Hall Putsch, Caduceus, Conqueror of Shamballa, Dante Alighieri, Dietrich Eckart, Fictional alchemists, Fullmetal Alchemist, Germany, Ishvara, Kimblee, Manga and anime characters, November 9,

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Main characters of Fullmetal Alchemist", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page